Best NASCAR Paint Schemes of the 90s

Living in the southeast my entire life (South Carolina) NASCAR used to be a real way of life when I was a child and teenager growing up in the 80’s and 90s. As the sport evolved out of their southern roots going into the new millennium, and the stars who helped put the sport on the map started leaving (either by retirement or, in the case of one of the sport’s greatest ambassadors- Dale Earnhardt, his tragic death), the sport of NASCAR changed substantially in such a way that nowadays I barely even follow the sport anymore, aside from maybe catching a few laps of the first race of the year- the Daytona 500. My Dad and I often talk about what NASCAR can do to re-energize the sport and regain the fans they used to have, but I’ll save that discussion for a future post.

One of the biggest changes in the sport today, is the lack of consistency of the driver’s paint schemes. Because the sport is so expensive to participate in, today’s drivers have to have multiple sponsors to afford to race, which means from week to week, a driver will sport a different paint schemes. In a season with 30+ races, you may only see a particular paint scheme a handful of times per season. And today’s sponsors come and go. Companies like Lowes, FedEx, Home Depot, UPS, M&M’s, Mountain Dew, and many more used to always field a car each season, but have left NASCAR in recent years.

Back in the 80’s and 90’s, as NASCAR was growing into their popularity and had struck television deals with networks like ESPN, The Nashville Network (TNN), CBS, and TBS, the cars were more readily identifiable because the paint schemes lasted all season long. Aside from maybe a special “one-off” paint scheme for the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (Memorial Day race), The Winston All-Star Race at Charlotte the weekend before, or the Pepsi 400 at Daytona (July 4th Race), the drivers sported the same looking cars all season long- often for many years in a row until the team wanted to make a change.

Today, I’m going to present to you my Top-10 favorite 1990’s paint schemes that I remember from my childhood. Later on, I’ll do another list of my favorite “one-off” paint schemes from those special races I mentioned above. This list has no relevance to how good the car or the driver was. This is just strictly a list based off of how good or cool the car looked visually.

#1 – Heilig-Meyers #90 Ford Thunderbird/Taurus (Bobby Hillin/Mike Wallace/Dick Trickle)

For some reason, I’ve always had an affinity with this car and team. Really, I think it’s the inclusion of the teal color (which any 90’s kids would readily identify as a “cool” color in sports – ask any Charlotte Hornets, Florida Marlins, or Seattle Mariners fan!). To me, the teal with the black and the red accent always drew my attention, even though as a team the drivers of the #90 Ford never achieved any kind of success. I also think the teal color wasn’t really used by any other driver at the time either. The furniture store Heilig-Meyers was a small, regional chain based in the southeast that sponsored the Junie Donlavey drivers from 1993-1999. Not long after, the furniture store chain went defunct in 2001. When I was a kid, this furniture store used to be on the way to the nearest shopping mall in my hometown. The building that housed Heilig-Meyers still stands to this day and I always remember it when I drive by that location every so often.

#2 – Tide #10 Ford Thunderbird/Taurus (Ricky Rudd)

Even though this ranks as my #2, there may not be a more memorable paint scheme for the 1990’s than this car. The thing that helped this scheme was that it was around in NASCAR even before Ricky Rudd piloted the self-owned #10 Tide Ride. Tide came aboard in 1987 with Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip and in the 90s is where Rudd made it a staple in NASCAR. Rudd achieved 10 wins- one win for every year with the lone exception of getting two wins in 1997 and going winless in 1999. For me, this car was always the best when it came to understanding marketing and branding – because when going down the cleaning aisle with Mom when I was a kid, I always remember seeing the boxes of Tide and connecting those colors and that logo with the racing team. Tide stayed around until the mid-2000’s with other drivers as well. It sported the numbers 17, 5, 10, 32, and 20.

#3 – Miller Genuine Draft #2 Ford Thunderbird (Rusty Wallace)

Another example of just a nice trio of colors (Black, Gold, and Red Trim), Rusty Wallace piloted the Penske Racing #2 Ford Thunderbird for much of the 1990’s and achieved success in the late 80’s winning the 1989 NASCAR Championship, but with the Kodiak Tobacco #27. He raced one year with Miller as the sponsor of his #27 before he moved to Penske’s #2 Ride in 1991. Although he never again won the championship, he won a lot of races in the 1990’s and it was primarily with this paint scheme. I think Dale Earnhardt’s iconic black #3 ride helped usher in an era where drivers would use black paint schemes hoping to create the level of “intimidation” that Earnhardt would do for most of his career. In the late 90’s, Wallace and Miller Lite decided to change things up to a white and blue scheme which I liked less than this black and gold scheme.

#4 – Factory Stores Outlet #75 Ford Thunderbird (Todd Bodine)

I always was a fan of this #75 Ford T-Bird driven by Todd Bodine. The paint scheme only lasted a few years before the team switched to a Remington-sponsored Camouflaged scheme with a new driver. Back in the 90’s before the Daytona 500 race, my dad and I would have this tradition where we would announce who our drivers for the season were going to be. The thing was, was that my Dad’s team never changed. He was always a fan of the Robert Yates #28 Havoline Motor Oil team with Davey Allison, Ernie Irvan, Dale Jarrett, and Kenny Irwin, Jr. I, on the other hand, would constantly flip drivers and I remember stepping up on the fireplace hearth one year and picking Todd Bodine as my driver. He had a few good runs in the #75, but never really got close to winning a race. For me, this scheme was cool because it was very “Americana” with the red, white, and blue flag-looking scheme.

#5 – Bellsouth #42 Chevrolet Monte Carlo (Joe Nemechek)

Here’s another one that always visually appealed to me. I think the bright colors and the scoop of colors coming down the front of the hood is what I liked about this scheme. Nemechek was one of those drivers that would qualify well, but never really contended for a victory in the 90s.

#6 – First Plus #13 Ford Taurus (Jerry Nadeau)

Here comes the teal again! This time accompanied with the bright orange. I don’t think I put it together at the time, but this ride was partly owned by the famous Miami Dolphins QB Dan Marino in his one and only season as a NASCAR owner. I don’t know how I would have missed it – maybe because I didn’t see Marino on the racing broadcast. Maybe he was too busy at the football game! Jerry Nadeau was the rookie driver selected by the team, but the team folded after one season and Nadeau went on to race for other teams.

#7 – Mello Yello #42 Pontiac Grand Prix (Kyle Petty)

Another one, similar to the Ricky Rudd Tide Ride, that when seeing this car and this paint scheme, you’ll know exactly what decade you are in. The difference between this and the Tide scheme was that this scheme didn’t hang around too long (Kyle Petty would soon find Coors Light as a sponsor) and that Petty didn’t have nearly as many wins in this car like Rudd did. To me as a kid, Mello Yello was a cool drink, but I guess most people would consider it 2nd behind the more memorable “Mountain Dew” which sponsored several drivers in the 1980’s NASCAR. The neon green and yellow definitely paired well with the black car, and one personal memory I have of this scheme was owning the 1/64 diecast toy car someone must have purchased for me as a kid. I played with that car quite a lot and still have it in my diecast collection somewhere up in the attic.

#8 – Interstate Batteries #18 (Dale Jarrett/Bobby Labonte)

For my #8 pick, there’s a lot at play here for making my list. First off, the team was owned by successful NFL coach Joe Gibbs of the Washington Redskins and always seemed to sport the NFL logo somewhere on the car. In Year 2 of the team’s existence, Dale Jarrett piloted the #18 green and black Chevrolet Lumina to a victory in the 1993 Daytona 500. Later in the decade, the team found young driver Bobby Labonte who drove the car to the 2000 Winston Cup Championship. The team has also achieved success in the 2000’s with Kyle Busch driving the Interstate Batteries #18 as well (although not as a primary sponsor in Busch’s 2 NASCAR championships). The longevity in the sport, paired with that bright neon green paint scheme, has made it one of the more memorable cars for the last 30 plus years.

#9 – McDonalds #27/#94 Ford Thunderbird/Taurus (Jimmy Spencer/Bill Elliott)

Another big corporation and marketing machine that a kid and teenager would remember growing up in the 90’s was McDonalds. What kid didn’t like going to McDonalds? I was happy to see McDonalds make their way into NASCAR (I don’t think they sponsored anyone prior) and Hut Stricklin, Jimmy Spencer, and Bill Elliott piloted these rides for the fast food restaurant. Spencer was a hard-nosed, no-nonsense type of racer who I remember edged Ernie Irvan one year at the Pepsi 400 at Daytona by bumping and banging Irvan for the victory. My dad, as a fan of the #28 Havoline Ford, wasn’t all too happy that day. In the mid-90’s Bill Elliott left Junior Johnson and started his own team in the #94 T-Bird and had a few various McDonalds schemes (including the famous Batman Forever Special Paint Scheme with the “Thunderbat” written at the bottom). What also makes me fond of this car and paint scheme was that for many years, Mom would take my sister and I to McDonalds when they were running the Hot Wheels/Barbie Promotion and try and help us collect the entire set. I remember one year the Hot Wheels promotion were die-cast of the real-life sponsored cars that McDonalds did, so you had Spencer’s T-Bird, a funny car, and a dragster included in the set. I believe the year was 1993 on that promotion. Later on, they would produce various happy meal toys of Elliott’s different paint schemes throughout the decade.

#10 – The Family Channel #16 Ford Thunderbird (Ted Musgrave)

Similar to the Todd Bodine Americana scheme from above, I remember liking Musgrave when he drove for Roush Racing in 1994 and seeing this car running hard near the front of the pack. The problem is, that Musgrave never could get the car in Victory Lane – in fact – he never found success in NASCAR’s Cup Series, but did achieve success in the 2000’s in the Craftsman Truck Series. Another thing about this car was that it was in the mid-90’s when our family finally got cable, and I remember first tuning into “The Family Channel” – which has since been rebranded and renamed to what it is now – Freeform – was a fun channel to watch in the 90’s with all kinds of old cartoons and kids shows back then.

Well, there you have it. If your nostalgic about old school NASCAR like me, then I hope this was a fun look back at some of the bright and vivid colors of 1990’s NASCAR stock cars. Of course, the brightest and most vivid paint scheme would come about in 1993 when a young driver named Jeff Gordon came onto the scene and dominated the later half of the decade. But branding and marketing was a key part of 1990’s NASCAR and that’s the decade that hooked a lot of young fans like myself, and a cool paint scheme went a long way into making a kid a fan of a particular driver. I think down the road, I’ll follow up this article with a Part 2 of the 90’s schemes but focus on the “Special” paint schemes for big races – like Bill Elliott’s Batman Forever theme, or the Wheaties Orange #3 driven by Dale Earnhardt in 1997’s All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

One other thing I’d like to mention, is that over at Trading Paints, you can find a lot of these schemes on the newer style modern stock cars from artists who design these for the racing simulators of today (iRacing). Here’s a link to one particular designer. I just love looking at the old schemes on the newer body cars of today. https://www.tradingpaints.com/profile/34337/Scott-Mitton

-CHAD